It Will Never Be Enough
by Rat
Summary: Oliver must maintain the balance between his personal life and being the vigilante. He wouldn't be able to do what he does without the support of his friends, even though he isn't always aware of how much he needs them. Olicity friendship, maybe more. Vague continuity, collection of short stories.
1. Scrabble

They ordered Chinese. The boxes were spread out and Oliver, Dig, and Felicity sat around the table helping themselves to a second helping. "So there we were, Oliver slipped the police that were on his tail and jumped in the car. And then..." Diggle stopped as Oliver laughed and slapped the table with his hand.

"And then." Oliver continued. "He decides he needs a cup of coffee. I've barely even wiped the paint off my face and he pulls into a coffee shop where there's what looks like a police convention going on. Five cars in the parking lot."

"What did you do?" Felicity asked.

"We went in, bought some coffee and sat down." Diggle laughed.

"Isn't that risky?" She asked.

"Not at all. In a coffee shop surrounded by cops is the last place they are going to look for a masked vigilante."

Diggle finished his plate, stood up and stretched. "That's it. I'm done. I'll see you two tomorrow." He gathered his stuff and left.

The easy conversation left with him. Felicity fished out another helping of noodles. "I made a list of some the research links I have on George Markwell. I don't like the idea of you going out and doing stuff while I'm gone."

"I think we'll manage."

"But you manage better if I'm here to back you up on the computer if anything goes sideways."

"You're right. You should stick around this weekend."

Felicity rolled her eyes. "George Markwell will still be in Starling City on Monday when I get back. Maybe you should take a couple days off from vigilante-ing."

"That isn't even a word."

"Does it look like we're playing scrabble?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe it looks like we are playing scrabble?"

"Maybe it can wait until Monday."

"Maybe?" She asked again.

This time Oliver rolled his eyes. "Yes. You deserve a weekend away and I shouldn't just assume everyone should drop what they have going on just to suit my time table." It sounded like he'd memorized one of Diggle's lectures.

"You should take the weekend off and rest a bit too. How's your leg? Did you get it looked at yet?"

Oliver put down his plastic fork, but didn't answer right away. He looked off towards the far wall, his brow lightly furrowed. Felicity bit her lip. She didn't know what she said wrong and it didn't really matter. There were five years worth of land mines collected in Oliver's head, and an endless stream of stupid things flying out of her mouth on a regular basis. If she were to try and walk on eggshells around Oliver she would end up never saying anything at all.

"Oliver?"

He blinked and little and refocused on her a little unsteadily, as though he wasn't entirely back yet. "Yeah?"

"Pass me the sweet and sour pork, please."

She waited while he focused on the table as though seeing it for the first time. She waited patiently and didn't fall for the urge to point it out to him. He did find it eventually and passed the box across the table. Felicity smiled and thanked him. He nodded in return and looked down at his plate briefly before pushing it slightly away.

Oliver cleared his throat. "My leg is better."

"You were limping earlier. Is it still bothering you?"

"I didn't notice." He paused for a minute. "I might have twisted my knee a bit when I jumped the fence. I didn't land all that great, but it didn't slow me down."

"That's good." She took a few more bites and then pushed her plate aside as well. "If I eat any more I'm going to explode."

"How I would explain that one to the janitorial staff?"

Felicity laughed, she felt satisfied for steering him back away from his dark thoughts. "We have wine here don't we?"

"Are you forgetting where we are? But didn't you just say you were full?"

"Wine doesn't count."

"Okay then." Oliver stood up and went upstairs to find an acceptable bottle of wine while Felicity did a bit of cleaning at the table, mostly consisting of just throwing the empty paper plates and boxes in the trash.

By the time Oliver returned with a bottle in one hand and a couple glasses in the other she was mostly done and he grabbed a rag and wiped the table. "This feels kind of normal, doesn't it?"

Felicity didn't think so, but the look on his face was wistful and she didn't want to break that. "It's a normal I could get used to."

"Exactly." He popped the cork and poured them each a glass.


	2. Alone

"Dig, Oliver's in trouble." Felicity couldn't tear her eyes away from the security feed she'd been monitoring.

_-I'm kind of busy here, how bad is it?-_ Diggle responded over the radio.

-_I'm fine.-_ Oliver snapped.

"Liar. If you're fine, why aren't you getting up?"

-_I didn't see any cameras.-_ Oliver grunted.

"It's connected to the internet and monitored by a third party surveillance. Duh. Don't worry, I cut the feed, no one else saw you fall."

-_He fell?-_ Diggle asked.

"His knee gave out as he jumped. He fell off the roof, and hit the fire escape."

-_I caught the fire escape. I didn't fall._- Oliver's voice cut in again, sounding more than a little agitated. -_Keep to the plan.-_

"Are the bad guys gone?" Felicity asked.

-_Yeah. They're headed back to their base, Dig, move fast.-_

Felicity listened to Diggle engage their mark. Oliver's role had been to lure the goons away while Diggle snuck in around the back to grab the Boss and drag him off somewhere more private and confront him properly. If they were keeping with the plan, Diggle wasn't going to be able to check on Oliver any time soon.

She grabbed her purse and picked up her phone and placed the Bluetooth headset in her ear. "Dig, I'm going to go help Oliver, I'll be offline for a while."

-_Be safe, call me if you have problems.-_ Diggle answered.

Oliver spoke up next. -_Not a good idea.-_

"Too bad. I'm already on my way." She jogged to her car and started the engine. It would take about fifteen minutes to get to Oliver's location if she drove fast. She hoped her new app designed to sync the city's green traffic signals to her route to would make the drive even faster. "How bad are you hurt?"

She heard some huffing and a thud before Oliver breathed out deeply and coughed. -_I'm not going anywhere_.-

"Not going anywhere as in not getting up and walking away or not going anywhere as in not dying?"

-_Both. Don't worry, I've had worse.-_

"Why is it so hard for you to admit you need help? You never went and got your leg checked out, did you? You're not alone on an island anymore."

-_How is that helping?-_

"Stop trying to do everything yourself. "

A minute passed between hearing anything from him and Felicity didn't like the silence, even though she was aware it was probably in response to her lecturing him."Talk to me while I drive. Just so I know you're not dead or something."

He must have picked up on the worry in her voice because he responded right away. -_Or something? What would the or something be?_-

"In a coma, or unconscious. Kidnapped by aliens."

-_Alien abductions are a big issue these days?-_

"I guess you wouldn't have heard about that. An alien base was found on the dark side of the moon three years ago. NASA thinks they're behind the increase of missing persons cases." Felicity answered.

_-What?-_

"Just kidding. But I had you for a second didn't I?"

-_No._-

"Keep talking. More than one word sentences would be preferable."

-_What do you want me to talk about?-_

"Tell me about Thea. What was she like when she was younger?"

She heard Oliver cough a bit, and then he started. -_I used to call her Speedy cause she was always running all over the place. There was one time we were at the family cabin ….-_

Felicity listened as she followed the GPS towards Oliver's location. "I'm close. Where are you?"

"In the alley."

The neighborhood was dark and there weren't any people around. She pulled into the alley. "I don't see you."

-_Give me a minute_.-

"I'll come help." She took out the keys and pocketed them just in case before getting out. Something moved behind the garbage bin and Felicity ran towards it. She used her phone as a flashlight and Oliver squinted against the harsh light as she shined it in his direction.

He took her hand and let her help him up and to the car.


	3. Distractions

There were people everywhere. All of them were his employees at Queen Consolidated and they were all interested in watching him to see what his next move would be.

Oliver tapped his foot on the floor and tried to steady his focus on the women standing in front of him. She insisted that he knew her in college and he sort of remembered her face but he couldn't remember anything about her. Was she an employee, or was she someone's date? He thought she might have said but couldn't remember.

Somewhere along the way he'd lost the ability to not pay attention to the background noises around him. Probably at the same time he realized being inattentive to his surroundings was a surefire way to get dead. The ability to be aware of every minute detail around him was necessary on the island, and it proved an invaluable tool while acting as the Vigilante. In a crowded room, however, it was distracting and only caused a massive headache.

"Remember that time you got caught with Melissa Hunt in the Dean's office?"

He remembered. It felt like a lifetime ago.

She rambled on about their college days, but he'd been to four colleges, and he wasn't sure which one she was referring to. The only thing he was sure about was he'd been with Melissa Hunt when he was 19, and she had been 26 and working towards a masters in psychology. He'd been expelled because of that incident. Back then, he'd never thought about what might happen to her because of it. He made a mental note to check up on her.

"What was it like?"

The question caught him off guard because his mind was still on Melissa. "The Dean's office?"

"The island. Was it like camping? I can't imagine the Oliver Queen I knew in College roughing it. Was there a beach?"

"A beach?" His brain froze. He remembered dragging his father's body up the rocky shore.

Why was it he could stare down psychopathic killers while they pointed a gun to his head and yet he was completely waylaid by a stupid question at a party? He looked away from the woman in front of him and towards something he saw flash in his peripheral vision. There was nothing there, but that didn't stop him from feeling like there wsomething threatening lurking just behind his back.

"How did you stand being alone for so long? I don't think I ever saw you alone anywhere. If you weren't with a girl you were with Tommy. I remember how inseparable you and Tommy Merlyn were. You should have seen him at your funeral. I don't think I've ever seen anyone so devastated. It's a tragedy what happened to him in the Glades disaster."

"Yes." Oliver managed. He couldn't focus properly on pushing everything into the background. There were too many noises, too many people.

"What did you eat? I guess you had to learn how to cook and everything? Did you learn how to hunt, or are you a vegetarian? What kind of animals were there?"

There was hunger. Constant gnawing emptiness.

"Do you miss the outdoors?"

The island was cold. It was wind and rain and hunger and death.

A hand touched his shoulder from behind and he tensed at the sudden unexpected contact, but it felt familiar and he closed his eyes for a moment, focusing on the hand on his arm rather than the unwanted memories bombarding his brain.

"Oliver, you didn't tell me you came with a date." The woman from college said softly.

"Oh, I'm not his date. I'm Felicity Smoak." Felicity reached out the hand that wasn't on Oliver's arm in greeting. Oliver watched the two women size each other up.

"Nancy Siemens. I was just catching up with Oliver from our college days together."

"Do you work here? It's just, I don't recognize you and I've been under everyone's desk at one time or another." There was a brief pause. "Because I work in IT, and that's where the cables are and when something doesn't work that's one of the first things we check. The cables. Under the desks."

"I'm in accounting." Nancy answered.

Felicity turned back to Oliver. "I just received a message from one of the subsidiaries in Coast city that the server went down and I need the pass code verification from you to link them back into the system."

"The what?" He asked. His brain worked furiously to catch up. He'd been listening up to where she talked about being under desks and somehow lost the thread of everything she said after that.

"The server went down and I need your pass code information. Because you're the CEO. And you have the codes."

"Right. Uhm," He turned back to the woman he didn't remember from college. "I have to go." He let Felicity tug him out of the main conference hall and into a side office.

"Are you alright?"

Oliver let the relative silence wash over him. The party noises were still in the background, but at least they were muffled by the closed door. She hadn't bothered to switch the light on and they stood together in the relative darkness, the only light coming from the frosted glass beside the door. This wasn't Felicity's office. He didn't know any pass codes to servers. They had agreed to keep their contact minimal at QC to avoid suspicion. "What are you doing?"

"Because it's quiet and private. Oh god. Did I misread things? Am I completely out of bounds here, because I thought you looked like you needed to take a breather."

"No."

"No, you didn't need a breather, or no, I'm not out of bounds?"

This wasn't getting him any closer to figuring out what Felicity wanted. "Is the server really down?" Oliver asked.

"Pfft, of course not. Even if it was I wouldn't need your help fix it." Felicity laughed and waved a hand dismissively. "It was just the best excuse I could think of to get you alone." She bit her lip again and huffed out a quick breath. "Not that I want to get you alone. I mean, I do... did. Not. That's why I dragged you in here... Do you want to talk?" She asked.

Oliver felt exhausted. Of all the things he wanted to be doing, talking was definitely not one of them. He had hoped Felicity knew him better than that by now. He leaned against the door and sighed. "I don't want to talk-"

Felicity interrupted by clearing her throat. "About the next name on the list. I was doing some research earlier today. I spoke to John first because of the party and I figured you'd have enough on your plate as it is, but I found something you need to know."

"Of course. What did you find?"

"Okay, so apparently..." Felicity started talking about the corrupt televangelist who operated a mega-church on the border of the glades and a growing worldwide ministry of which the donations were used towards financing his corporate interests and manufacturing sweatshops in developing countries, and apparently even going so far as financially supporting a dictatorship in the middle east.

Oliver focused on the information. None of it was anything that couldn't have waited until tomorrow, but he was grateful for the distraction it provided, and he was relieved that he'd been wrong. Felicity did know him; better than he'd ever given her credit for.

And it struck him then, that it was definitely time to get to know her just as well as she knew him.

* * *

_a/n: Thanks for following so far. I've got a bunch of fics I've written for Arrow and this has really been the encouragement I needed to clean them up and turn them into something more. Please leave a review and let me know what you think, or where you would like to see me go with this. :) __If there are any beta readers out there interested in helping me out, I'd appreciate that too. _


	4. The Interview

**The Interview**

There were worse things than taking out the needle and thread and stitching one of Oliver's wounds from a night out fighting bad guys.

Felicity watched the live interview from her smart phone at work with her Bluetooth headset. Oliver had agreed to appear on the daytime talk show to promote the Glades Foundation, a major charity effort Oliver was backing to help with the reconstruction. The network had insisted that Oliver Queen be the spokesperson for the interview.

One of the many things the network wouldn't budge on was to air the broadcast live. She warned Oliver about the host of the show; Pamela Rosen. Pamela Rosen was known for what the network called edgy interviews. Felicity saw it as intrusive and rude. The lack of empathy Ms Rosen showed her guests was legendary. One in particular had been the mother and father of a child who had gone missing ten years ago. Felicity remembered seeing other interviews with the parents on different news networks at the time, they were speaking on behalf of a child find organization and hoping to renew awareness into their own child's disappearance. As soon as the show began, the discourse was more of an interrogation than an interview as Pamela Rosen asked them over and over again what they would have done differently the day of their daughter's disappearance, suggesting there was negligence on their part. _I can imagine how overcome with guilt you must be_, Pamela had said.

"Oliver, the woman is a vampire. Or ghoul. Or something nasty." Felicity tried to warn him.

"I think I can hold my own against a daytime talk show host." He answered. "The Glades Foundation needs the exposure and they only way they'd talk about the charity was if I did the interview personally."

And so the interview began.

_The host, Pamela Rosen introduced Oliver. They began with a little bit of small talk. "This is a serious endeavor for you. You should be careful or you might lose your youthful carefree public image."_

_"I haven't felt young and carefree for a long time." Oliver admitted. _

_Ms Rosen asked about the charity work and the role of his company in the efforts. _

_"My intention is to assist in the work the charities are doing, but Queen Consolidated does not hold a leadership role. Our assistance is mainly with the administration, supervised and directed by their own people."_

_"And what kind of compensation is your company receiving for their involvement?"_

_"No compensation. With the administration expenses covered, all donations go directly to the rebuilding effort." Oliver explained._

_"Do you feel a sense of guilt and responsibility for your family's role in the tragedy?"_

_"It's the right thing to do. QC is only one of many businesses involved in the efforts. A full list is available on the website." _

_"You have your own property interests in the glades, don't you?"_

_"My club, the Verdant. It isn't in the destruction zone, but we had a lot of structural damage. I'm handling those repairs independently. There are other properties, those are also being covered at our own expense. The charity is concerned with the families who lost their homes and the small businesses who don't have the capital to rebuild. It's about rebuilding the community."_

_"Where were you that night?"_

_"This isn't about me."_

_"You lost a friend." The screen behind Pamela Rosen flashed with pictures of the devastation in the Glades. The way the chairs were situated at angles with the screen directly behind Ms Rosen. Oliver's view was aimed directly at the screen. The slides were pictures everyone was already familiar with. Broken buildings, broken people. And then it flashed to a photo of Tommy. It was an old photo, Tommy was dressed casual, smiling, clearly on his way to a night out on the town with a young Oliver beside him._

_"There isn't anyone who didn't lose a friend or a loved one that night." Oliver deflected._

Felicity felt her stomach turn. She logged off her work computer and grabbed her purse. It didn't matter that it was the middle of the day, she worked more with Oliver directly these days than in the IT department and she didn't care what her supervisor had to say about leaving early.

_"And you are no stranger to loss. You lost your Father and your girlfriend that night of the storm. How difficult was that for you, finding yourself suddenly alone?"_

_The image changed again, an image of his Father standing on the Queen's Gambit._

_Pamela Rosen didn't bother waiting for a response. "Were you aware of the massive search and rescue mission that took place after the Queens Gambit was lost?"_

Felicity could see Oliver's eyes fixed on the image on the screen.

_"Of course, I assumed there would be. Once or twice I saw something in the distance. It could have been anything."_

_"It must have been difficult, knowing that rescue was so close and yet having no ability to signal for help." _

Bitch_._ Felicity hailed a cab and gave the directions to the network.

_"I don't think that's what it was. The ocean is a big place. But, that's in the past. We have a lot of people in our own city in need of rescue, right now, and that is what the Glades Foundation is focusing on." _

_"Tell me, what was it like the moments before the yacht was lost? Were you aware of what was happening?"_

_"I came here to talk to you about the charity effort." Oliver answered. _

_"Was it structural damage or the storm that sank the yacht?"_

_"I'm not here to talk about that." Oliver answered. _

The signs weren't obvious, but Felicity saw them. His eyes narrowed slightly, he breathed more deeply.

_"Five years is such a long time to be away from your friends and family. It must be doubly heartbreaking now to lose your mother and your best friend so soon after getting back. How does it feel, to know that your mother was involved in the disaster? Have you had any contact with her?"_

_Oliver smiled his best fake smile. "In the Glades, there is a lot of work to be done, and crime has only increased. But there are a lot of businesses and people lined up to help the recovery, and it isn't too late to turn things around. The major challenge lays in identifying where everyone's best talents are best suited. Log onto the website and fill out the form available, and you will be contacted."_

_The picture on the screen changed to that of a shadowed island with a rocky shore. She saw Oliver focus on the image. _

_"I __have heard that you weren't alone on the island as it was first assumed__. _

_"Where did you hear that?" _

_"Who was with you? Did someone other than yourself survive the wreck? Why were you alone when you were rescued?"_

_The next image was something Felicity hadn't seen before and she wondered how the network got a hold of it. It was Oliver. It must have been right after his rescue. He had long hair and a beard. His head was down and a blanket was wrapped around his shoulders. _

_Pamela Rosen didn't even bother to push for a response to her previous questions, his reaction was apparently all she was hoping for. "How did it feel to finally be rescued, to be on that fishing boat and know that your ordeal was finally over?"_

_Oliver didn't answer. _

Felicity tried to keep herself from nagging the cab driver to drive faster

_The next pictures were snapshot photos of what looked like foreign hospital records. A close up of a brutal web of scaring that Felicity recognized from his shoulder__, another image of the burns on his low back__. Another picture of him standing in a dingy hallway wearing faded and worn patient scrubs, staring slightly left of the camera. In the picture he looked lost. He looked every part of the traumatized victim that Pamela wanted to portray him as. Beside it was a photo of him before the island, a handsome boy walking on the beach with friends. No scars, no tattoos. The contrast was jarring. "Twenty percent of your body is covered in scars. Second degree burns on your back. Broken bones that never properly healed. __You suffered greatly on the island, didn't you? Did you ever consider giving up?__"_

Felicity didn't know the Oliver of before. She remembered seeing his picture now and then in the news but hadn't paid attention to the gossip magazines.

There had to have been something special about him even back then. He survived. Felicity thought she would have liked to have known the younger Oliver who smiled so easily. In just about every pre-island picture he was laughing. The cab stopped, she paid, and didn't bother waiting for the change.

_"You have never spoken publicly about your ordeal, clearly there is more to the story. What was it like there? What kind of things happened to you?"_

_The contrasting pictures of Oliver before and after stayed on the screen. _

_Oliver finally spoke. His voice was low, but clear. __"The time I spent on the island isn't something I talk about and I don't appreciate your focus on my past. All it does is deflect from the very important issue I did come here to discuss. The Glades Foundation is doing work now, to make life better for the people of this city."_

_"I'm sorry Mr Queen." Pamela Rosen said sweetly. "I thought, as a disaster victim yourself, you would want to speak out to support other victims. Victims of tragedies like what happened in the Glades. __D__eep psychological damage __often leaves it's victims __unable to speak about their experiences. Let's talk about the Glades Foundation."_

_Oliver looked from the screen to Pamela, his expression still cool and controlled. Expressionless. " Come out and __help rebuild__. If you have a construction company or food or supplies or money, or time you would like to donate, call QC, we have a dedicated line for support efforts. All money goes directly to the effort." He smiled briefly at Pamela. "Thank you for taking the time to have me on your show." He said easily and pinched the clip to remove the wired microphone from his collar. _

_Pamela smiled for the camera. "After this break we will be speaking with survivors of the Glades disaster."_

Felicity turned off her phone. There was a crowd bunched up around the front doors of the office building. Paparazzi. She wasn't the only one to see the interview. The media had been trying to pin Oliver down for weeks to get his reaction on the Glades and Moira's arrest.

She flashed her QC employee badge to the security, claimed to be Mr. Queen's assistant, and was granted entry. The security guard directed her towards the elevators, but she looked at them only briefly before searching for the emergency staircase. She cast a quick glance around to ensure no one was watching, then quickly headed down the hall and through the fire doors and onto a small landing of bright florescent lighting, bland gray walls, and chipping yellow handrails. She sat on the bottom step and waited. The sound of footsteps echoed from above and she smiled to herself. Oh yeah, she knew him.

The original plan had been that Oliver would stay and meet with director of the network to discuss a possible documentary special featuring the Glades Foundation that QC would partially finance. Cold chance in hell that would happen now.

The footsteps grew louder, then slowed and stopped. Oliver looked down at her for a few seconds before leaning against the wall.

He wasn't even winded. Neither saying a word. Felicity knew this script, they've played it out many times before. Somewhere in his experiences on the island Oliver learned that the only way to deal with stress was to bury it deep and suppress any sign of weakness. She considered it her duty as his friend to break that cycle.

"I didn't know you were here." He said eventually.

"I wasn't."

"So, you saw the interview."

She nodded.

"I'm fine. It's not like-"

"Like being broadsided by questions about your experiences bother you?" She interrupted.

His expression hardened. "You don't need to be here."

Oliver reached for the door, but she jumped up and grabbed his wrist before he walked away. He could have broke the connection in a heartbeat. But he didn't.

"Wait. Paparazzi have the building surrounded."

He stood very still. "There are always paparazzi."

"And they've been given enough fodder for one day, you don't have to give them more."

"What do you want me to do? Hide in a stairwell?"

"Diggle is going to pull the car around to the back." She let go of his hand and sat back down, and he sat beside her. "I knew Pamela Rosen was a horrible person, but I didn't know she would be that awful."

"All this does it take focus away from the foundation." He answered.

"You were set up. The foundation was desperate for exposure, the only way the network would talk about the Foundation was if you did the interview yourself. It took planning to set up the photo's they had."

"I didn't even know those pictures existed. I don't remember them being taken."

She pulled out her phone and sent a quick text while he watched. "John is going to pick us up at the service entrance in ten minutes. That gives me just enough time to do this." Her thumbs raced over the touch screen again.

"Do what?"

"Arrows aren't the only way to fight injustice." Felicity said lightly and continued without looking up. It took a ton of effort on her part to keep her face serious and wait for Oliver to ask instead of rambling on and explaining it anyway.

"What?" He finally asked.

And it took even more effort not to tell him even after he did ask. "You'll see. No one messes with my friends and gets away with it." After a minute she turned off the screen and dropped the phone back into her purse.

"I'm glad you're on my side."

"Always." She tried to keep her voice light to hide real weight of exactly what she meant, but the way his eyes met hers and lingered just a little longer than normal made her wonder if he saw it regardless. "Let's go, Diggle will be waiting."

The moment was over. They found exit was at the back of the building. It was close to the staircase and out of sight of the main lobby and Diggle was already there waiting.

* * *

_Please review and let me know what you think. (I based the story on a real interview because the horribleness of the interviewer stuck with me for a long time, and the resilience and tenacity of her guest to stay on topic and not be lured into something she wasn't willing to talk about was awesome... some tv personalities really are this horrible.) -Rat_


	5. Too Late

_Many thanks to Xeladew for beta reading, you are amazing! Any mistakes within are due to my endless tinkering after the beta read. ;)_

* * *

_**TOO LATE**_

His target were the drug dealers moving into the area dealing a yet another new knockoff version of vertigo. Cheaper than other drugs on the market made it popular in The Glades, but it came with an unsuspected side effect. Suicide. Although it took a while for the hospital to link the cause of death to the drug, out of fifteen suicides, thirteen of them tested positive with vertigo. The correlation was too large to dismiss. And Oliver was determined to stop its spread through his city before it took an even bigger toll on the already vulnerable population.

The streets were mostly quiet tonight. He followed a few teenagers for a couple of blocks. They found a secluded corner at the side of a building to smoke pot; these weren't the people Oliver was looking for, so he moved on.

He saw a car being broken into by an apartment complex and shot a flash-bomb-arrow at the thief's feet. The guy ran away. He figured that should be enough of a warning.

No drug dealers. He decided to try the other side of the highway closer to the old mall that collapsed in the disaster.

The sound was slight, but he caught it. It reminded him of the island. He listened closer. It was like a whimper. The kind of sound a wounded animal made.

The sound came from the alley off the main road. It was dark, if there were any security lights they were either broken or no one bothered to turn them on. He walked slowly, listening for any sound. He heard labored breathing coming from beside the dumpster.

A teenage girl sat hunched against the wall, her clothing was ripped; blood was smeared across her face and her side; she held her arm protectively against her body. A dark stain spread out on the pavement around her, and Oliver knew from experience that it was too much blood for someone that small to lose. She was young, younger than Thea.

"Stay away." She moved back further, pressing her back against the dumpster but in too much pain to do much else.

He stayed back and contacted Felicity. "Felicity, call an ambulance to my GPS location."

"_What?_"

"I came across someone who needs help." He explained before turning back to the girl. He turned off his voice modulator. "Help is coming. They're on their way."

She stilled and stared at him. "Who are you?"

He crept a bit closer. There had to be something more he could do to help. "I'm not here to hurt you." He assured her again. "Who did this?"

"You're the arrow guy, aren't you? I saw you on the news. Everyone thought you died in the disaster. " She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. "Brown eyes, crooked nose. He was wearing a grey jacket and an orange baseball cap." She shifted slightly and cried out in pain. Oliver inched closer.

He spoke into his link again. "How long? She needs help now."_"They're on their way."_ Felicity promised him.

"He had a knife." The girl coughed weakly, and there was blood on her lips. She coughed again to clear her throat. "You'll get him? You'll find him, right?"

"The paramedics are coming." He said, but they could both hear the distinct lack of sirens.

"I don't want to die alone." She whispered.

He bridged the gap between them. "You're not alone."

She coughed again, this time more blood coming from her mouth. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and supported her as she struggled to breathe.

"Hold on. Just hold on, they'll be here soon."

She stopped breathing. Oliver held onto her. He could hear sirens now, but they were still distant. Gently, he laid her down and brushed the hair away from her face.

There was nothing he could do.

* * *

There were two ways to get into the Lair. One was through the club. The other was a secret entrance out back, beyond the loading doors. Felicity heard the alarm beep as the door opened, and she heard the thump of the door when it closed.

Felicity had been following the emergency bulletins. Despite Oliver's lack of update, she already knew the girl died, and she knew the paramedics had found her alone.

He walked up next to her. She glanced over. There was blood on his jacket.

"Can you look something up for me?"

"What do you need?"

"A name."

She already knew the answer to the question. "Anna Scott. The paramedics found her dead." What Felicity didn't tell him was that Anna Scott had been homeless since her parents died in the Undertaking. She didn't tell Oliver that there had been no one for the hospital to notify of her death. The girl had been truly and terribly alone.

Oliver sat down beside her. She opened a new window on the computer. "I found this on a sidewalk camera."

There was a video of a teenager walking down the sidewalk. Slightly behind her walked a man wearing a grey jacket and an orange baseball cap. He looked right into the camera as he followed the girl, and his nose was crooked.

"I used the police department's database. Harold Walker. He escaped from police custody three weeks ago while being taken to a court appearance." She watched him stand up. "So, what are you going to do?"

Oliver glanced back at her. "Call Officer Lance. Harold Walker will be ready and waiting when the police arrive."

* * *

_AN: Thanks for reading! If you like my stories please review, let me know what I am doing right or what I am doing wrong, or what you think about what you read in general. I would love to have some feedback. Or, if you have any cool ideas for stories you would like to see me do, I would love to hear them!_


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